No comments about Bringing Elizabeth Home: A Journey of Faith and Hope.

3 comments about A Short Walk from Harrods (Author's Autobiography).

1. How to write a domestic horror story and gardening book in one. Terror so subtle it could happen to you, olives so ripe you'll be picking in no time:

   Dirk has a lovely garden. He also likes trees. A lot. There's a guy who gets his legs chopped off by accident, then there's Dirk's conscience. Is he really responsible for so much death? He thinks he is. Coming in with his black cloak and scythe, Monsieur Bogarde lives with his so-called 'agent' who gets colon cancer and alzhimer's (is this Dirk's doing?). They plant things and pick olives and live in France, then they don't plant things and pick their noses and live in England. But death cannot be escaped. Dirk has a stroke, his 'agent' drops dead, and they all live happily ever after. Based on a true story.




2. This is a lovely book, a really honest and heartfelt description of a phase in Dirk Bogarde's life that was both wonderfully happy and crushingly sad. It could be a very depressing book, but somehow it reads delightully. As an aside it is also a lovely insight into the delights of Provence, so well portrayed by Peter Mayle in his Provence trilogy. I highly recommend it.



3. Mr. Bogarde has written a book that is so personal and engaging, the reader feels as though he is peeking into a private diary. Each sentence is exact and necessary. There is no flowery narrative, no swanking, no attempt to remind us that he is a film star. It is a simply written, glowing example of a man's desire to share a deeply private part of his life and of himself. Any reader who has enjoyed Mr. Bogarde's prior works will not be disappointed. (Please note his name is DIRK, not Dick)

No comments about T. R.: the Last Romantic (Unabridged Audio).

5 comments about Truth at Any Cost.

1. Let's see. Ken Starr wastes the public money attacking Bill Clinton with false accusations while at the same time siding with KON-servative Mitch Mcconnel of KY to allow for more corrupt campaigns as if there aren't any already !!! This book is a perfect tool for neconservative NAZIS to enjoy and drool over but is otherwise useless trash for the rest of us who are already facing mass destruction by Bush/Cheney/Rove/Delay and GOP with of course a spineless opposition that barely got together to defend Clinton but easily caved into and defended Bush the liar-in-chief !



2. So Bill Clinton had his men muscle poor Ken Starr who did a fabulous job exposing this infidel. Clinton was disbarred and impeached but still allowed to finish his term, hand out pardons to criminals, steal furniture from the white house and take the economy right down the toilet.

   I gues that saying about the golden rule: "the man with gold makes the rules" is very true.

   Another reason why I am glad that I am no longer a democrat. Or is that democ(rat).




3. This smarmy little work of personal opinion, conjecture and gossip fits in neatly with its subject: independent counsel Kenneth Starr and the private lives of any human being that had any contact with President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary. Highly recommend wearing your gloves to keep the oil off your hands.



4. Truth At Any Cost does not pretend to be evenhanded. Instead, co-authors Susan Schmidt and Michael Weisskopf examine the Lewinsky affair from the standpoint of those inside the Office of Independent Counsel. The result is a new perspective on an exhaustively covered scandal.

   This book dwells little on Whitewater and the other investigations that led to the appointment of Independent Counsel Ken Starr. The authors instead concentrate on the sexual scandal that led to Clinton's impeachment and how Starr and his subordinates responded. It would have been nice to know more about the men and women who investigated the president, but the focus is on personality rather than biography. The authors depict Starr in a much different light than the oft-demonized caricature that was spoon-fed the public. Again, it would have been nice to know more about Starr's background, but the concentration is on his character. Starr is presented here as a conscientious but politically naive lawyer better suited to the bench than to the OIC.

   Although relatively brief, the book drags a bit but picks up steam in the latter chapters as the independent counsel gathers and compiles evidence against the president. A few new revelations emerge along the way. Among them is Hillary Clinton's central role in the defense of her husband and in the counteroffensive against his opponents.

   This book is worth reading just to see why, as well as how, the prosecutors pursued this case so vigorously. Their motivations often run counter to the stereotypes floated at the time, and this makes for a new spin on an old story.




5. I just finished reading the Hunting of the President by Conanson and Lyon, and Truth at Any Cost. These books provide an instructive contrast. Thus, while Hunting provides copious footnotes for factual assertions, Truth far too often presents the judgments, feelings, assessments and views of Starr and his staff in subtle substitution for attributed facts and as though those statements were the complete truth and not worthy of further examination. This fault becomes more clear when combined with the artful and disingenuous sorting and choice of facts to support its assertions.

   Some readers have expressed approval of the discussion of legal stategy presented by Truth and there certainly is plenty of discussion of these subjects which can serve to inform. But what a critical comparision of Hunting and Truth reveals is how an advocate's ordering of facts, use of conclusions in lieu of facts and reference to subjective views, judgments etc. as facts can present the distorted picture sought only by an advocate. Happily enough, in the context of appellate advocacy, such biased presentation of a factual or legal case is quickly dispelled by reply briefs of one's opponent before an appellate tribunal.

   As an example of the difficulty with the facts presented in support of the author's presentation is that involving David Hale. Mr. Hale's statement are presented at one point to debunk critics of the Staff investigation. Yet, as Hunting points out, Hale has a long history of lying about anything involving Clinton, to say nothing of stealing, all of which Truth ignores.

   Lastly, the book goes to on at length to justify Starr's expenditure of public funds to uncover Clinton's sexual behavior and lies about that. However, one striking thing to any civil litigator must be the number of times perjury is clear in an ordinary civil proceeding, and yet there is complete disinterest from prosecutorial authorities. I suggest that perjury is generally considered worthy of prosecution in the abstract by our society, but apparently not in the real world when compared against other crimes deemed more damaging to society. Yet when Starr as an independent prosecutor assigned to investigate only Clinton learns of possible future perjury in litigation he previously particpated in as an advocate for Clinton's opponent, that limitation on prosecutorial discretion goes out the window and requires the investment of millions of dollars and countless FBI agents. Clinton's behavior was unseemly. Despite Schmidt's and Weisskopf's efforts to portray Starr otherwise, his actions were also quite unseemly.

5 comments about Marching Through Georgia (Nova Audio Books).

1. I find it difficult to read other authors after reading Ellis, and I've read all, loved lots. His style is unique. Educated and articulate enough to hold his own with the greats but so raw and open that you really feel like you were there with him and all those he met. Very few have aroused the desire to re-read, but I can't put this guy down, I've laughed and cried 7 times through this book. Ellis is different than all the others. He does not disappoint. As a transplanted Southerner, I get it now! Read this book (and his others) ASAP!!!



2. I have read the book version of this title and it is certainly more in-depth than this audio book. But the audio is powerfully and beautifully read by the author himself. His dramatic voice makes the book spring alive. Wonderful listening...



3. In 1864, General Sherman, Union general, began his infamous (or famous) trek through Georgia, vowing to make Georgia howl. Howl it did. And still does. More than a hundred years later, Jerry Ellis walked the same path. It was a trek in search of his own Southerness, and an homage to his father who had died not long before. Along the way, he met people who still remember Sherman and the devastation he and his army left in their wake as though it were yesterday. He found Southern hospitality. He found a South that finds it hard to forget.

   This is a personal story, not meant to simply tell the history of the places and people he finds along the way. Their histories are interwoven with his own, their presents forming a framework for Ellis' coming to terms with the possibility of losing the woman he loves because of the journey, and with the death of his father. It adds to what he knows about himself and who he is, a Southerner with ties to the War Between the States, and part Cherokee with ties to a past unrelated in many ways to that war.

   This is an interesting view of history and how it affects people's lives, even generations later. At times, Ellis becomes too bogged down in his own problems and we wonder if he misses telling about other things we might have found interesting. But all in all, this is a book for Southerners who know and understand their ties to the South, or who are still trying to find those ties and weave them back into their lives.

   Readers who like this book might also want to read other of Ellis' journeys. Also "Womenfolks: Growing up Down South" by Shirley Abbott might be interest. They might also like to read an account of Sherman's march to the sea, such as those included in the nuemrous Sherman biographies, or sets of histories of the war, including the Time Life Civil War volume "Sherman's March."




4. This is probably one of the worst books I have read in a long time. Mr. Ellis travelogue fails to on so many levels it is difficult to list them all here. He provides little historical context, his opinions are pompous, his anecdotes are trite, his personal life stories are self-absorbed, and his grand attempt to define what it means to be 'Southern' fails. I can only attribute it to my Yankee's perseverance that I did manage to make it through this tripe. I believe that if General Sherman wanted to inflict true pain on the South, rather than burning his way to the sea, he should have forced the rebels read this book.



5. On his 1994 attempt to re-trace William Tecumseh Sherman's trek from Atlanta to Savannah, Jerry Ellis searches for vestiges of that traumatic time reflected in the people he meets along the way.

   This book is an unsuccessful hybrid of social history and an "on-the-road" travelogue. Ellis uncovers no previously undiscovered traces of the effect of Sherman's journey in the New South and after a while it appears he loses sight of his goal. This book has one saving grace: Ellis's natural story-telling ability which captures the spirits of the people he encounters. However, this bright spot isn't enough to compensate for Ellis's failure to achieve his original objective; it just turns this into a passable diary of someone's hike.

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No comments about How One's Biography Becomes One's Biology.